Distortion of Compact Antenna Test Range Characteristics Caused by Realistic Design of Blended Rolled Edge Reflectors

The results of investigations of quiet zone distortion caused by realistic design artefacts of blended rolled edge reflectors (BRE) used in compact antenna test ranges (CATR) are presented. Despite thorough investigations of this type of reflector in recent years, little attention has been paid to accurate scenarios, i.e., characteristics of CATRs are observed for physically fabricated reflectors. Typically, reflectors have a fixed thickness and finite-size edges. As a result, quiet-zone (QZ) performance predicted by physical optics and physical theory of diffraction (PO/PTD) will omit certain phenomena that could potentially impact the performance of the CATR. It is usually caused by in-house or commercial PO/PTD software limitations, which consider only non-shadowed surfaces and generally omit reradiation. Parameters affected by the realized mechanical implementation are side and rear illumination of anechoic chambers, amplitude and phase ripples in the quiet zone as functions of real thickness and trimmed edges of BRE reflector, which are in the deep shadow region. Therefore, this paper concentrates on carefully examining these artefacts where a proprietary, full-wave, three-dimensional, computational electromagnetic (CEM) solver was utilized using a method of moments-based finite element solver.